xxxxxxxx is where the Heart Is
by ilurandir
Summary: Sherlock is a lot of things, but John never expected that he could be this. Part of the Home is where the Heart Is collection.


_He doesn't remember, in the warm, close moments when Sherlock's lips press open and hot against his neck and they are both just breathing, whether they were laughing or fighting. Just that he had been so exasperated, and it was all normal. It _was all normal_ (because exasperated is a regular emotion in a five yard radius of Sherlock bloody Holmes) and then suddenly it wasn't, because suddenly Sherlock was spinning, circling, away from him and back, away and back, and John could see the wet patches on his coat where the snow was drying…_

…And then Sherlock's hand hits the wall to the right of John's head with _purpose_ but not with anger and John raises his chin to meet Sherlock's eyes that are often grey, and sometimes green - the colours as mercurial as the man himself - in order to tell him to leave off (so they'd been arguing then), and because his head was already tilted back, Sherlock's long fingers, startlingly warm and dry against the damp cold of his skin, collide messily with the underside of his jaw, and he makes a soft coughing sound as two of those fingers press uncomfortably, accidentally, against his throat and Sherlock stills a moment, and just looks at him just long enough for a thrill of realisation and something like fear to course all the way from the base of John's spine to the back of his skull and then they are kissing, or rather their mouths are pressed together, open - just inhaling, uncertain and slow, each stealing the other's breath.

John is aware of the sore tension in his cold fingers where they are clutching the damp lapel of Sherlock's stupid Dramatic coat, and he is pulling, pulling him closer. The way their chests rise against each other makes his breath hitch, and Sherlock's lips close over John's lower one making it a kiss proper.

"Sher-" John shuts his eyes tightly and turns his face away, quick - thinking _no_, away from that arm still at the level of his eyes, Sherlock's hand still pinned against the wall, idly thumming a peel in the wallpaper.

He can't stand to look at Sherlock, not now, not like this. He doesn't want to see the colour of Sherlock's eyes or the look on his face. He can't fucking handle it right now.

Everything is very still. Very silent. Mrs Hudson is out - Baker Street is a quiet one, especially at this time of night, and neither of them wears a watch to tick a heartbeat into the silence.

Slowly, very slowly Sherlock's hand drops from John's jaw, and he realises that his own fingers are still twisted into the taller man's lapel. He let's go as though he's touched the burner on the stove when Sherlock forgets to turn it off.

There is no hiss of air from Sherlock but John would swear that he could _feel _it in the air.

"John." The tone is so flat he can't tell if it's a question or not. "Look at me." He sounds a bit unsteady, the way he does when something genuinely gets to him. John's only heard him sound like that once or twice.

John does. He owes him that much. Always. He's reluctant to admit it, but it's clear - etched on his mind, his _heart_, that he would do anything, _anything_ for this man, even though he still puts up a fuss every time there's bits of person in the microwave, or when Sherlock asks for his phone which is less than a foot away, or when he's so infuriating John sincerely wants nothing more than to crack him one across those bloody cheekbones.

Of course Sherlock would go beyond anything John could have anticipated. Those eyes - they are so green, just now, pale and luminous and strange, and they are flickering fast over his face the way they do when he's thinking - when he's close to the key to a puzzle - like the way he only ever looks at cases and never at John Watson.

There is something twisted and wrong about Sherlock's mouth, and slowly, slowly he draws back. That was unacceptable. He can tell from John's eyes, from the furrow of his brow - he can figure it out when he tries hard enough, what other people are feeling, and John is absolutely, ridiculously flattered that Sherlock is trying hard enough to figure out him, and then he feels rather like a tosser for being so greatful.

Sherlock's arm drops from the wall and he seems to curl into himself, folding his arms across his torso, turning his face away towards his violin case, towards the window, effectively shutting John out.

"Don't you dare," John finds himself saying, because there has never been something between them that was unspoken - unless it's something with Sherlock he just doesn't understand or isn't meant to understand because it's all just so much more dramatic that way - it's all always been out in the open whether they liked it or not and he's not going to have it any other way, not now. They've spent too long being well and truly open - or as open as Sherlock can be.

As open as John hopes he can be.

"Don't you dare." The words have the desired effect. Sherlock stops, stops withdrawing, but doesn't meet his eyes. And bizzarely, for once, John can read it all on his face - Sherlock has miscalculated, he's misread John. He can see the embarrassment, the mortification on Sherlock's face, and it's not what he wants, he realises with a hot twist in his stomach. He reached out and curls his fingers once more around that lapel, the other hand around the soggy fabric of Sherlock's scarf - strangely childish when up close, all stripes and knitted and blue, and he presses their mouths together once more, and it is like kissing stone. Sherlock is completely unyielding under his administations until, suddenly, he isn't, and when his lips part there is the smallest, softest sound on his exhale and John gives it up completely. This is just one more thing he never expected since the very moment Sherlock Holmes opened his mouth in John's presence. What's one more thing, really?

And, he thinks, would be perfectly fine feeling Sherlock's body tense then relax under his hands, bit by bit, as though he's not sure of any of this, for as long as it lasts. And the fact that Sherlock isn't sure about this is thrilling in itself and, alarmingly frightening, and he feels he's been handed an immense responsibility, and perhaps he has, and he doesn't give a damn.

Really, he doesn't. He wants it.

And they don't 'fit together' and there are no fireworks or revelations, but it is terrifying and comfortable all at once, and suddenly he realises, he is home.


End file.
